‘That,’ said Miss Silver, ‘is very interesting.’
Henry nodded.
‘I thought so. Of course you can’t say he was a creditable relation to have around – I mean, nothing very compromising about Bertie feeling that a good stretch of the Atlantic or the Pacific between them would make Frank less of a handicap. But there was something about the way she said it, if you know what I mean. Bertie had been very pressing, and Frank had been cocking snooks when he’d had one over the odd, and hinting at what he could say if Bertie pushed him too far.’
Miss Silver put her head a little on one side with the air of a bird who sees a plump and juicy worm.
‘Did he say what he would do, Captain Cunningham?’
‘He hinted that he could make it hot for Bertie. He said he’d done dirty work for him once too often, and that he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known what Bertie was up to -said he’d got evidence that would hang Bertie if he took it to the police. The girl Phemie says he showed her the evidence and then made her promise she wouldn’t tell anyone, because, he said, they might hang him, too, and he never meant the old man any harm.’
Miss Silver faced him on the narrow pavement, her eyes bright and alert.
‘This evidence, Captain Cunningham -did she tell you what it was?’
‘I’ve got it here,’ said Henry. He gave his limp paper parcel a bang and produced it with the air of a conjuror bringing something out of a hat.
A curious change came over Miss Silver’s expression. She put out her hand for the parcel and she opened her mouth to speak, but she neither spoke, nor did she touch the crumpled brown paper. Her hand fell to her side, her lips stayed open, and her eyes lost their brightness whilst remaining even more alert than before. She said in a quick, restless voice,
‘Captain Cunningham, where is Miss Carew?’
At once Henry was jarred again.
‘I left her here.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘She must have gone round the corner. You said so, – you said she would walk to keep herself warm.’
‘She wouldn’t go far. She ought to be here. I don’t like it, Captain Cunningham.’
Henry was off before she had finished speaking. The street ran straight for about a quarter of a mile without a side turning. His long legs took him to the end of it in a very short time. He went out of Miss Silver’s view round the left-hand corner. After an interval he crossed the head of the street again and disappeared in the opposite direction. Then he came sprinting back.
Miss Silver turned before he reached her and hurried back along the way by which they had walked together. Henry came up with her, panting. His heart thumped, ‘Hilary – Hilary – Hilary – ’ and he was afraid with that unreasoning fear which is the hardest of all to control.
‘She isn’t anywhere – Miss Silver – ’
Miss Silver began to run in an odd hen-like manner.
‘I think I ought -to tell you that -the Mercers are – in Glasgow – Captain Cunningham. In – point of fact – I – followed them – here. A police-constable is – meeting me at – their lodging – immediately. I am very apprehensive on -Mrs. Mercer’s account. If -by any chance -Miss Carew -’ The words popped out in jerks, but she ran gamely.
They came into the street where the tenement houses were, and she caught Henry by the arm and pointed.
‘That door – where the policeman is – fifth floor – on the left – ’ This took the last of her breath, but as he broke from her she snatched the brown paper parcel and tucked it under her arm.
Henry went pounding across the street, shouted to the policeman, and flung himself at the stair.
After a moment’s hesitation the policeman followed him.
Miss Silver followed the policeman.
A little while before, Hilary had been quite sure that no one could run up five flights of stairs. Henry now proceeded to smash this theory. From the moment Miss Silver mentioned her name a most devastating conviction that Hilary was in danger had driven him. It took him up the five flights at a record-breaking pace, and on the third step from the landing he heard her scream. He took those three steps in a stride and rushed the door. For a moment it held. He had the idea that someone was holding it against him, and thrust with such violence that the sudden inward swing shot Hilary and Alfred Mercer across the passage and into the kitchen. Hilary fetched up against the kitchen table gasping for breath, and Mercer, stumbling, blinded, with blood and ink running down his face clutched at his eyes with one hand and with the other lugged an ugly horn-handled knife from his pocket. A steady stream of curses poured from his lips. There was ink on the floor, there was ink on Hilary, there was ink everywhere. It seemed impossible that so much ink should have come out of one small bottle.
Henry stood for a moment stupefied, and in that moment Alfred Mercer put his other hand to the knife and got it open. Hilary tried to scream, but she couldn’t get her voice to do anything. It stayed shut up in her throat and choked her. She saw Henry take a step forward. She heard the sound of breaking glass as his heel came down on the bottle neck, and she saw Alfred Mercer gather himself up and spring. The knife flew out of his hand as Henry caught his wrist and banged his elbow against the door. And then there was a wild free fight, and a chair went down and Mercer tripped over it and Henry tripped over him. After which the Scotch policeman arrived and took charge.
Miss Silver walked in a moment later. She looked at the ink, the blood, the knife. She looked at Alfred Mercer in the big policeman’s grip. She looked at Hilary, very pale and holding on very tightly to Captain Henry Cunningham. And she said in a gentle, enquiring voice,
‘Pray, what about Mrs. Mercer?’
Hilary shuddered.
‘I think she’s dead. He – He – ’
‘I never touched her!’ said Alfred Mercer. ‘I never laid a finger on her – I swear I didn’t!’
Henry put his arm round Hilary and held her up. She was shaking from head to foot.
‘He was going -to poison her. He made her sign – a – confession – ’
‘Shut up, you!’ said the policeman, and put a hand over Alfred Mercer’s mouth.
‘He made her – write it. I saw her – at the window – she looked terrified – so I came up. She told me he-was – trying to – kill her. I wanted her – to come away. Then he came – and I hid – in the cupboard. He had that knife – and he made her write – what he said – and sign it. Then he – was going to give her something – to make her sleep – and she wouldn’t have waked up again – ever – ’
‘I see,’ said Miss Silver. She turned and went into the bedroom.
They waited in a dead silence. Hilary wished that she could stop shaking. She was so cold – that was it, she was shaking because she was cold. Nothing made you so cold as being afraid. It was horrible to be in the room with Alfred Mercer, even though he was quiet now and dabbing at his eyes with a stained handkerchief and the policeman’s hand was heavy on his shoulder.
Miss Silver came back, walking briskly.
‘Mrs. Mercer is not dead,’ she said – ‘oh, dear, no. She has fainted. She will certainly recover and be able to make a statement. Constable, I think you had better take that man to the police-station. I will see that nothing is interfered with here. Captain Cunningham, I should like your help in getting Mrs. Mercer on to the bed -I cannot manage her alone. And if you, Miss Hilary, will blow up that fire and put on a kettle, we will make her a nice cup of tea. In fact, I think we should all be the better of a nice cup of tea.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
We shall have to telephone to Cousin Selina,’ said Hilary. She pushed back her hair and gazed rather wanly at Henry.
It was actually only about two hours since she had smashed the ink-bottle in Alfred Mercer’s face, but it felt like a long and sordid week. The large Scotch policeman had taken his prisoner away. A detective had arrived to take charge of the flat. Mrs. Mercer had come out of her swoon only to go fro
m one weeping fit into another until she was taken away in a taxi with a policeman and Miss Silver in attendance. Henry had then removed Hilary to an hotel, where she had got the worst of the ink off her hands and resigned herself to the fact that it would never quite come off her coat. They had just had lunch.
‘Henry, we shall have to telephone to Cousin Selina,’ she said.
‘I don’t see why. She wasn’t expecting us back to lunch, anyhow.’
‘It feels like months,’ said Hilary with a shudder. ‘Henry, can’t you get married in Scotland just by saying you’re married? I mean could we just do it, and then we needn’t go back at all? I mean, I don’t feel like Cousin Selina.’
Henry hugged her.
‘Darling, I wish we could! But you’ve got to have a Scottish domicile nowadays.’
‘How do you get one?’
‘Three weeks’ residence, I believe. You see, I’ve never lived in Scotland, though my name is Scotch. But we can get married a lot quicker than that in England.’
That’s no good,’ said Hilary in a forlorn sort of voice. She rubbed her cheek against his coat sleeve. ‘It’s all rather beastly – isn’t it? I mean about Mrs. Mercer. She -she cried so. Henry, they won’t do anything to her? Because whatever she did, he made her do it. She wouldn’t dare to go against him. Whatever she did, he made her do it – like he did with that confession.’
‘H’m – ’ said Henry. ‘I wonder if she did shoot James Everton. It’s possible, you know.’
‘I know it is. That’s what’s making me feel so bad. I do hope she didn’t.’
‘If she did, I don’t see where Bertie Everton comes in – and he does come in, he must come in. Hullo – I’ve only just thought of it – where’s that parcel I had?’ He jumped up from the sofa corner where he and Hilary had been sitting very close together and began to feel in all his pockets.
Hilary looked bewildered.
‘What are you talking about darling? You hadn’t any parcel.’
‘It wasn’t a parcel, it was evidence, with a capital E – and I’ve lost it!’ He ran both hands distractedly through his hair. ‘Hang it all, I can’t have lost it! I had it in the street when I was talking to Miss Silver. We were talking about it, and then we got the wind up about you and I forgot all about it. You know, Hilary, I don’t want to rub it in, but if you’d done what you were told and stayed where you were put – ’
She gazed meekly at him through her eyelashes.
‘I know, darling -Mrs. Mercer would have been dead.’ The meekness vanished. ‘She would – wouldn’t she?’
Henry threw her a look of frowning dislike.
‘Anyhow, I’ve lost that dashed parcel, and if you hadn’t – ’
‘Not quarrelling,’ said Hilary with a quiver in her voice – ‘please not.’ And all at once nothing mattered to Henry in the world except that she shouldn’t cry, and nothing mattered in the world to Henry except that he should love her, and hold her close, and make her feel safe again.
Miss Silver entered upon a very touching scene. She stood just inside the door and coughed gently, and then neither of them took any notice of that she waited for a moment and thought it was pleasant to see two young people so much in love, and then coughed again a good deal louder than before.
Hilary lifted her head from Henry’s shoulder with a start. Henry jumped up. Miss Silver spoke in her ladylike voice.
‘I was afraid you might be worrying about your parcel, Captain Cunningham. I took charge of it, as I thought it would be safer with me.’ She held it out, a shabby, disreputable parcel tied with a raffish piece of string.
Henry took it from her with considerable relief.
‘You’ve opened it?’
Miss Silver appeared surprised and pained.
‘Oh, dear me, no – though I confess that I have felt curious. You were telling me that Mrs. Francis Everton gave it to you, and that it contained a very important piece of evidence.
‘It contains a red wig,’ said Henry. He slipped off the string and dropped the paper to the floor. A most authentic red wig emerged.
Hilary said ‘Oh!’ and Miss Silver said, “Dear me.’ They all looked at it – red hair of a peculiar shade, red hair worn longer than is usual for a man, red hair of the exact shade of Bertie Everton’s hair, and worn as he wore his.
Miss Silver drew a long satisfied breath.
‘This is indeed an important piece of evidence. I congratulate you with all my heart, Captain Cunningham.’
Hilary’s eyes were bright and frightened.
‘What does it mean?’ she said in a troubled whisper.
‘That,’ said Miss Silver, ‘I am now in a position to explain. Will you both sit down? There is really no need for us to stand. No, Captain Cunningham, I prefer an upright chair.’
Hilary was glad enough to get back into the sofa corner. She slipped her hand inside Henry’s arm and looked expectantly at Miss Silver sitting bolt upright in an imitation Sheraton chair with a bright yellow shell on the back. Miss Silver’s mousy grey hair was smooth and unruffled, and her voice was prim and calm. The pansies bloomed serenely in her tidy dowdy hat. She removed her black kid gloves, folded them neatly, and put them inside her bag.
‘Mrs. Mercer has made a statement. I think that what she has said this time is the real truth. The wig which enabled Francis Everton to impersonate his brother and thus provide him with an alibi on the day of the murder is a strongly corroborative piece of evidence.’
‘It was Frank Everton at the hotel – Frank? said Hilary.
‘I was sure of it from the first,’ said Miss Silver.
‘But he was here – he drew his allowance here in Glasgow that afternoon.’
Miss Silver nodded.
‘At a quarter to six. Let me run over the details, and you will see how it all fits in. Bertie Everton’s alibi depends on the evidence of the people who saw him in the Caledonian Hotel on Tuesday, July 16th, the day of the murder. His own account is that after dining with his uncle on the evening of the fifteenth he caught the 1.5 from King’s Cross, arriving in Edinburgh at 9.36 on the morning of the sixteenth, that he went straight to the Caledonian Hotel, where he had a late breakfast and put in some arrears of sleep. He lunched in the hotel at half-past one, and then wrote letters in his room. In the course of the afternoon he complained to the chambermaid that his bell was put of order. He went out some time after four, enquiring at the office if there had been any telephone message for him. He did not return to the hotel until getting on for half-past eight, when he rang and asked the chambermaid to bring him some biscuits as he did not feel well and intended to go to bed. In her statement she says that she thought he was the worse for drink, but when she brought him his tea at nine o’clock next morning he seemed all right and quite himself.’
Miss Silver paused, coughed in a refined manner, and proceeded.
‘There were several points that struck me in this statement and in the evidence as to Bertie Everton’s movements. To begin with, why, when he was staying at the Caledonian Hotel, did he take a train from King’s Cross? The King’s Cross trains arrive at the Waverley Station, which is a mile from that hotel. If he had taken a train from Euston, he would have got out at the Caledonian Station, where he would only have had to walk through a swing-door. Why, then, did he choose the King’s Cross-Waverley route? It occurred to me at once that he must have had some strong motive. The point was unnoticed at the inquest, and it does not seem to have emerged at all at the trial.’
‘Why did he arrive at the Waverley?’ said Hilary.
Henry said, ‘He didn’t,’ and Miss Silver nodded.
‘Exactly, Captain Cunningham. It was Francis Everton who arrived at the Waverley Station, having come over from Glasgow, probably on a motor-bicycle. You were not able to get any information on this point?’
‘No – no luck – too long afterwards.’
‘I was afraid so. But I feel sure that he came on a motor-bicycle. The head-dress and gogg
les make a perfect disguise. Having garaged his machine, he had only to go down into the station, present the cloakroom ticket with which, I feel sure, his brother must have furnished him, and take out a suit-case containing a suit of Bertie Everton’s clothes and this wig. The change would be easily effected in a lavatory. With his own clothes in the suit-case, he could then take a taxi to the Caledonian Hotel, and be seen breakfasting there.’
‘How much alike were they?’ said Henry. ‘It was a bit of a risk, wasn’t it?’
Miss Silver shook her head.
‘No risk at all. The first thing I did was to secure photographs of the brothers. There is a decided family likeness, but Frank had short dark hair growing well back from the temples, whereas Bertie Everton’s shock of red hair is easily the most noticeable thing about him. In this wig Frank would deceive any hotel servant. It would be so easy to avoid being seen full face. He had only to rest his head on his hand, to be busy with a newspaper, to be blowing his nose – there are half a dozen expedients.’
‘The chambermaid never saw his face,’ said Hilary in an excited tone. ‘We found her, and she said so – didn’t she, Henry? She said no one could mistake that red head of his, and when he complained about the bell he was writing letters with his back to the door, and he ordered his biscuits standing over by the window looking out, and when she brought them he’d been washing and had the towel up to his face drying it. I got it all out of her – didn’t I, Henry?’
Henry put his arm round her.
‘You’ll get wind in the head if you’re not careful,’ he said.
‘You did very well,’ said Miss Silver. ‘That was how it was done. And you see there was very little risk. Everyone in the hotel knew that noticeable head of red hair, and when they saw it they were quite sure that they were seeing Bertie Everton. At a little after four Frank left the hotel, asking about a telephone call at the office as he went out. He must have taken the suit-case with him and changed back into his own clothes. He could have done it in the station. He had then to pick up his motor-bicycle, ride over to Glasgow, and present himself at Mr. Johnstone’s office by a quarter to six. The distance is about forty-two miles, I believe. He could do it easily. He was in the office till a quarter past six. At half-past six he was, I feel sure, upon the road again. But he made one big mistake – he stopped on the way for refreshment. Drink, as you know, was his enemy, and he was unable to resist the temptation. The moment I read in the chambermaid’s statement that she thought Bertie Everton was the worse for drink when she answered his bell at half-past eight that Tuesday evening, I had the feeling that here was a very important clue. I was right. Enquiry quickly informed me that drink was not one of Bertie Eyerton’s vices – I could not find anyone who had ever seen him the worse for it – whereas his brother’s weakness was notorious. At that moment I felt sure that Bertie Everton’s alibi was fraudulent and the result of a cleverly contrived impersonation. We shall never know all the details. Having-got rid of the chambermaid, Frank would have had to watch his opportunity and leave the hotel. He most probably changed back into his own clothes up there in his brother’s room. There would not be many servants about at that hour in the evening. He had only to get out of the room without being seen, after which no one would notice him. He could proceed to wherever he had left his motor-bicycle and return to Glasgow. But he did one thing which I feel sure was not in his brother’s plan – he kept the wig. I have a strong conviction that he was never intended to keep the wig.’
The Case Is Closed Page 22